Ecosystem Service Assessment in Land Use Planning Decreasing Territorial Vulnerability. A Critical Exploration of Planning Problems Starting from the Land Take Regulation in Piedmont Region, Italy
Author(s): Ombretta Caldarice, Stefano Salata
More info: Ecosystem Services (ES), that are the benefits that the soil provides to communities, represents a new paradigm that supports the transition of urban planning towards the environmental approach.
The utilization of ES during decision-making phases is crucial to make an ex-ante evaluation of the environmental, and socioeconomic too, effects of land use changes. ES assessment supports the preliminary measurement of ecosystemic trends due by land use changes both biophysically and qualitatively. Nonetheless, even if the biophysical analysis of ES achieved optimal results, it has been less explored how to fill the gap between the theoretical evaluation of ES and its practical implementation for urban design solutions. The interest of ES at the international and academic stage is therefore high since one of the most prominent critics that come from the institutional debate is that ES assessment is practically weak and insufficient to provide an operational framework for an operative utilization in land use planning.
The manuscript, which is a research product of the project “Measuring Resilience” of the Responsible Risk Resilience Centre (R3C) of Politecnico di Torino, will consider the abovementioned issues analysing the recent Regional legislative framework of the Law 302/2018 “Norme urbanistiche e ambientali per il contenimento del consumo del suolo” in the Piedmont Region. The manuscript forwards a theoretical reflection on how the operational utilization of ES can be actively and practically used to support land use planning especially performing ecological compensation for new urbanizations.
In the methodological section, the General Land Use Plan of Moncalieri (PRG) will be evaluated testing the ecosystem performance of three ecosystem services (Habitat Quality, Carbon Sequestration, Water Yield) on each land use zone. The calculation forwards an assessment of the most common regulative soil ES in Moncalieri finding and homogeneous distribution in the whole city (Public and Private one). Results indicate that ES can be proactively used to increase the knowledge and the ecosystemic condition of the communities through their utilization for land use planning processes.
The utilization of ES during decision-making phases is crucial to make an ex-ante evaluation of the environmental, and socioeconomic too, effects of land use changes. ES assessment supports the preliminary measurement of ecosystemic trends due by land use changes both biophysically and qualitatively. Nonetheless, even if the biophysical analysis of ES achieved optimal results, it has been less explored how to fill the gap between the theoretical evaluation of ES and its practical implementation for urban design solutions. The interest of ES at the international and academic stage is therefore high since one of the most prominent critics that come from the institutional debate is that ES assessment is practically weak and insufficient to provide an operational framework for an operative utilization in land use planning.
The manuscript, which is a research product of the project “Measuring Resilience” of the Responsible Risk Resilience Centre (R3C) of Politecnico di Torino, will consider the abovementioned issues analysing the recent Regional legislative framework of the Law 302/2018 “Norme urbanistiche e ambientali per il contenimento del consumo del suolo” in the Piedmont Region. The manuscript forwards a theoretical reflection on how the operational utilization of ES can be actively and practically used to support land use planning especially performing ecological compensation for new urbanizations.
In the methodological section, the General Land Use Plan of Moncalieri (PRG) will be evaluated testing the ecosystem performance of three ecosystem services (Habitat Quality, Carbon Sequestration, Water Yield) on each land use zone. The calculation forwards an assessment of the most common regulative soil ES in Moncalieri finding and homogeneous distribution in the whole city (Public and Private one). Results indicate that ES can be proactively used to increase the knowledge and the ecosystemic condition of the communities through their utilization for land use planning processes.
2019 | Journal Articles
A multi-discipline method to assess the human performance in manufacturing industry for safety and quality optimization
Author(s): Lorenzo Comberti, Micaela Demichela, Maria Chiara Leva
More info: Nowadays the majority of organizations operating in manufacturing field recognize the importance ...of including the Human Factor contribution in the industrial process optimization (Hong et al. 2007). Technical measures and work organization procedures have been optimized in order to reduce the defects and waste generation but the Human Performance prediction still represents for Managers a difficult task to deal with.The prediction of the human performances of all workers involved in a production system would help Managers in better allocating the human resources. In order to reach this objective, a model to quantify the human capability of managing a complex task in a working context characterized by a set of physical, organizational and cognitive factors was designed.This paper presents the preliminary results of a three years industry/academia partnership project to assess the human performance in manufacturing plant. A multi-discipline approach involving both technical and individual factors was adopted.
2018 | Conference Proceedings
Qfd to Determine Experimental Biopiles Requirements, to Be Used at Bench-scale as a Strategy Against Soil Pollution with Oily Waste
Author(s): David Javier Castro Rodriguez, Yudexi Jimenez Gonzalez, Omar Gutiérrez Benitez, Enmanuel Casals Pérez, Dayana Ribassa Ribassa, Orlando Viera Ribot, Micaela Demichela
More info: Due to the increase in the amount of oil used, large volumes of hydrocarbons are released annually into the environment, constituting one of the main causes of soil pollution worldwide. The Center for Environmental Studies of Cienfuegos, Cuba; implemented an experimental project to develop an innovative technique as a resilient alternative to this environmental problem. The objective was to implement the Quality Function Deployment (QFD), to determine the design requirements of the experimental units to be used at the bench scale, for the biodegradation of different biopile treatments. The QFD offered a systematic approach to translating attributes into engineering features. The concentrations of microorganisms, nutrients, and hydrocarbons in the biopile were the characteristics that accumulated more than 50 % of the relative weights of the first level matrix. The initial concentration of hydrocarbons and the percentages of moisture and bulking agents in the mixture obtained the highest relative weights in the second level. The percentage of bulking agents was identified as an opportunity to reduce costs and improve the effectiveness of bioremediation and stimulate the circular economy. The results enabled delineating the experimental protocols for the engineering design, which ensured to build the bench-scale prototype of the experimental units for the evaluation of various treatments of biopiles ecotechnology as a resilient alternative against soils hydrocarbon pollution.
2022 | Journal Articles
Interferometric Satellite Data in Structural Health Monitoring: An Application to the Effects of the Construction of a Subway Line in the Urban Area of Rome
Author(s): Giulia Delo, Marco Civera, Erica Lenticchia, Gaetano Miraglia, Cecilia Surace, Rosario Ceravolo
More info: In recent years, the use of interferometric satellite data for Structural Health Monitoring has experienced a strong development. The urban environment confirms its fragility to adverse natural events, made even more severe by climate change. Hence, the need to carry out continuous monitoring of structures and artefacts appears increasingly urgent. Furthermore, satellite data could considerably increase the feasibility of traditional Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) approaches.This study aims to explore this remote sensing approach, focusing on the representation techniques that can be adopted to highlight their advantages and provide an interpretation of the results. In particular, the study analyzes records from the urban area of Rome (Italy), subject to the construction of a new subway line. These data are exploited to create a velocity map to highlight the possible subsidence phenomenon induced by excavations. Then, the paper focuses on single buildings or building complexes through the entropy–energy representation. Beyond the different limitations caused by the input data, a correlation is identified between the results of the two representation techniques. Accordingly, the effects of excavation on the urban area are demonstrated, and the methodologies are validated.
2022 | Journal Articles
Urban Climate Action. The urban content of the NDCs: Global review 2022
Author(s): Bernhard Barth, Nicola Tollin, James Vener, Maria Pizzorni, Ainhoa Saurí Gázquez, Patrizia Gragnani, Maria Manez, Grazia Brunetta, Ombretta Caldarice, Jordi Morato, Stelios Grafakos, David Simon, Tadashi Matsumoto
More info: This report was prepared by United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) and the UNESCO Chair on Urban Resilience at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU.Resilience). It offers a global analysis of the urban content of 193 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) before the 19th of June 2022. For this report, more than 200 indicators were used to analyse external data (e.g., Human Development Index and income categorisation) and data within the NDCs, including climate mitigation and adaptation challenges and responses, as well as specific sectors. This analysis is instrumental to supporting Parties’ efforts in further integrating national climate policies and urban climate actions, which is considered fundamental to raising ambition and developing adequate and timely actions as required by the current climate emergency. This review can be instrumental for advocacy and direct support to countries by partner organisations. The work was supported by a group of experts from bilateral and multilateral organisations and academia. Three expert group meetings were convened, and a peer review was organised for the final report.
2022 | Dissemination Activities
Co-evolutionary, transformative, and economic resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Evidence-based experiences of urban community design in Turin (Italy)
Author(s): Cristina Coscia, Angioletta Voghera
More info: This article seeks to interpret co-evolutionary and transformative resilience in a broad sense, with the aim of understanding how it may come into the practices of urban planning and project-making, innovating project procedures, and generating economic effects. This article studies this through the case of Bottom up!, the Turin-based Festival of Architecture, and observes the procedures through which resilience takes action in different territories, inter-preting territorial problems and crises such as the pandemic, viewing them as opportunities to innovate the system, suggesting integrated action on the natural, cultural, financial and social capital, experimenting with new practices, and holding institutions accountable.
2022 | Book Section